From the Crypt: The Horror Chick’s Weekly Horror Roundup

The horror genre has never been bigger, so how is a gore fan to keep up with all the latest news? Luckily for us, CC2K Horror Chick Paula Haifley is here to bring you everything you need to know. Sit down, strap yourselves in, cover your eyes (while leaving a peek hole), and read on!

Despite the fact that the original’s famous disco dancing scene was not included, the Prom Night remake was at the top of the box office this past weekend, with the twelfth highest April debut ever, so expect even more remakes of 70s-80s horror films that were never good in the first place.

Speaking of remakes, United Artists is remaking the Spanish film Los Cronocrimenes as Timecrimes, about a man who accidentally goes back in time a half an hour and has to prevent some serious and very bad things from happening. Timothy J. Sexton, the writer of Children of Men, has been hired to pen the US remake. I haven’t seen the original, but how can it be better than Timecop? It can’t, that’s how.

Shia LaBeouf has signed on to star in another thriller, the Neil Burger-directed The Dark Fields. Based on a book by Alan Glynn, the film is about a slacker who gets his hands on a super secret drug that makes people smarter. Silly slacker, you should know that these things always have bad consequences, like making life move like stop-motion, and making you look like Indiana Jones’ illegitimate son. Given the success of the actor’s last horror effort, Disturbia, producers Leslie Dixon (who is writing the upcoming remake of The Birds) and Scott Kroopf (One Missed Call and Pitch Black) must be happy to have LaBeouf along.

The Fangoria Weekend of Horrors convention is coming to Los Angeles April 25-27, and is the place to be for any So Cal horror fans. This year it will be held at the convention center in downtown LA, having outgrown its old home at the Burbank Hilton, and this horror chick is glad that she won’t be driving around the Hilton parking lot for a half hour trying to find a space to cram her compact horror car into. The con will have your standard giant room of vendors, B-list horror stars selling autographs (The Ladies of the Evil Dead have great t-shirts), panels about upcoming films, and Tony Todd, which no horror con would be complete without. The big-ticket items this year are reunions of the cast and crew of the original Night of the Living Dead, including George Romero, and guests from all four Psycho movies on one stage. The horror chick’s list of can’t miss guests are: Clive Barker (sit as close to the stage as you can so you can understand his gravely voice), Rob Tapert (who is famous for producing both Sam Rami films and two kids with Lucy Lawless), awesome comic guy Steve Niles, Max Brooks (author of the Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z), and my favorite screenwriter Jace Anderson, who actually gets paid to write horror all day, is the co-writer of the upcoming Autopsy (which is about a “bizarre and dangerous hospital” according to IMDB), and grills a mean corndog. Make sure to check out the free screening room, which has been known to feature hard-to-find short films, new indie releases, and cult classics. I’m just excited that I may get to be in the same room with James Duvall, who I’ve had a crush on since The Doom Generation.

Also for those in LA, the Steve Allen Theatre in Hollywood is having a two month David Cronenberg retrospective, with a different film being shown at 8pm every Saturday, culminating in the American premiere of his new short film At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World, on May 31st. It’s worth anyone’s while to see the terrifying and disgusting things this twisted Canadian horror great was doing before he was getting nominated for Oscars and crap.

The rights to Ghost in the Shell have been bought by DreamWorks, which also distributed Ghost on the Shell 2: Innocence in the States. The studio plans to adapt the stories into a live action 3D film, and Spielberg himself is a fan of the manga. I’m not really familiar with the property, so you tell me: do you think a live action 3d version would screw it up, or does it sound possibly cool?

Time Warner has sliced up a large part of “The House that Freddy Built,” New Line Cinema, laying off 450 workers as they merge the studio into Warner Bros. Now New Line will be making six to eight films a year, like their previous hits Wedding Crashers and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and will still be bringing us the not-anticipated-at-all remakes of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. While New Line, like any studio, has churned out some real crapfests over the years, this horror chick is saddened that, with such a small film slate, the studio-within-a-studio may no longer be able to take a chance on those great indie, horror and cult pictures they’ve given us over the years, like John Waters’ Polyester (which you should rent right now if you haven’t seen it) and Hairspray, Drop Dead Fred, Se7en, Snakes on a Plane, and the original Nightmare on Elm Street.

In DVD news, French gorefest Inside is being released today uncut (put intended). Remember that news story from a few months ago where a woman tried to cut a baby out of another woman’s womb and steal it? That’s basically what this is about. The buzz is that its as gruesome, disgusting, and terrifying as one would think it is, given the subject matter, and I can’t wait to see it.

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